Bruce felt, rather than saw, the spires move again. He cursed the fact that he'd disregarded them in his, admittedly threadbare, plan. Not only that, but it was harder to sense Ross' impact on the earth now that he'd made the distinction between the material under his control and everything else. 
Although part of him encouraged reckless abandon all over again, Bruce knew better than to expect that he could strike Ross with his sword before the Gaian got him. If he wanted to make any progress, though, at least one of Ross' hands would need to be preoccupied. 
An idea popped into his mind, and Bruce created more lengths of chain that wrapped around one of each of the three pillars he'd erected. Timing the release as best he could, each length shot out toward an adjacent pillar, the path they took leading them straight into the turbine-like formation of spires that spun around Ross. Just one chain making it between a spinning spire and Ross would mean that the Ki-based weapon would surround the Gaian. Bruce allowed the length of chains to extend naturally at the pace of the whirling spires. He had little doubt that between his pillars and the spires, if the chain went taut, the pillars would break first. 
That done, Bruce was already through the veneer of sand that remained between his flying body and Ross' position, and he angled his blade so that it was perpendicular to how Ross attacked. He shifted the flow of Ki in the blade, trying to mimic Mikey's defensive Ki structure as best as possible- rather than concentrating the song's rhythm toward the sharp end of the sword, he reversed it so that it made multiple crescendoes as it flowed toward the back side of it, culminating in a thick wave that would, hopefully, withstand at least one slash from Ross. At the same time, he stretched his consciousness to make a layer of dirt and stone crawl up the wall of the arena, planning ahead for his next move on the chance that he 'survived'.